Limitation of Solution Patch in Dynamics 365

Recently while working with a Solution Patch we came to realize one of its limitation (or feature) which we weren’t aware of.

If we are trying to update a component through the patch, and that particular component has been customized in the target environment ( through default solution in case of managed), the update won’t work on that component.

Let us take a simple example to understand this.

Below we have created a solution with one workflow in it named Test Process.

Now let us export the solution as managed and import it in Test.

Now back in our DEV let us rename the Process and create a patch for it and import it in Test.

Now let us go back in our DEV and make some update in the name of the process and import it again in the Test.

We have selected the option of overwriting customizations here.

We can see the update in the TEST after importing the patch.

Now comes the interesting part, in the TEST environment, go to Settings – Customizations and rename the Process. Here we have appended “Updated” in its name.

Now let us import the same Patch Solution back in our TEST with Overwrite selected.

Unexpectedly, we do not see any change, the process is unchanged in the TEST even after importing the patch with Overwrite option. We expected it to be renamed to Test Process Patch Version 1 as it was in the patch solution, instead, it has the suffix Updated to it i.e. the changes that we made directly in the TEST through default solution.

The way we can now update it from DEV is to clone our solution there.

Import it to TEST and apply Solution Upgrade.

Below we can see the new version imported into the TEST and as expected the Process renamed to what it was in DEV.